Dying in the Wool (19 page)

Her mouth set in a grim line. ‘He wants it down as a workplace accident. That’ll suit his books.’

‘Could you bear to tell me about how you found him, and whether he gave any indication as to what might have happened?’ I asked.

She sat up straight. ‘Aye. Every unbearable detail. Why should I be the only one plagued with nightmares?’

She stared at her hands, folded in her lap, as though to look into the room or at us would come between her and the images in her mind. She told us how she heard a blast, and knew straightaway what it was. How she ran, and found him in the canal, scalded and burned.

She looked across at me, and at Tabitha, with a defiant stare. ‘He give me a look that was love, a look that was love and sorrow. And I caught his breath and summat on it that shouldn’t have been there, summat sweet and bitter. He were poisoned.’

She said this calmly and with such conviction that it rang true to me.

‘Poisoned,’ Tabitha repeated, mouth open in horror, eyes wide.

The weakness in my limbs fixed me to the spot. I made
myself take a few deep breaths.

‘I’ll talk to the constable. Tabitha, will you stay here with Mrs Kellett a while longer?’

I walked slowly up the bank, towards the bridge, carrying my camera bag which I shouldn’t have brought and which had grown heavier. The smell of burnt wood, ashes and the harsher tang of chemicals caught my throat. The mill yard seemed ominously quiet. No bogies clattered across the cobbles. No bales of yarn were hauled up on the crane. The destroyed dyehouse was taped off. A glum Constable Mitchell stood guard.

‘Fire brigade chief’s on his way from Keighley, supposedly with a factory inspector if one can be spared. They want to look at the scene, decide whether it was avoidable, any culpability to apportion.’

‘Mrs Kellett thinks it wasn’t an accident.’

‘I know. She believes someone poisoned him or doped his drink. But she was the one brought him a sandwich and a jug of beer.’

‘If it wasn’t an accident …’

From not far off came the sound of an approaching car.

Mr Mitchell raised an eyebrow for me to make myself scarce. ‘Best let the experts do their job. If they tell me owt, I’ll pass it on.’

I took the hint.

‘Where can I leave my bag? Tabitha and I are going walking and I don’t want to drag it with me.’

We left Lizzie’s house with slow steps. I asked Tabitha to take me to the places she and Edmund had walked with their father as children. It was not just that I hoped to glean knowledge of the landscape, but Tabitha seemed to talk more freely out of doors.

The day was fine and dry, with a blue sky, gentle breeze and ever-changing clouds. We walked briskly, higher and further, savouring the air and the view. In this timeless
landscape, questions of life and death seemed somehow part of a larger pattern, and not new and sharp and unique to us.

‘Are there any hiding places your father could have taken shelter, when he left the hospital, just to keep out of the way until the hoo-ha died down?’

‘There are caves, and old mineshafts. Last September, I paid a caver to do a search for me. It was scary, because it can be dangerous. All the while I wondered, what if the man dies? He has a wife and children, and what if he dies on my errand?’

As she spoke, I understood why Hector might resent her search for her father. Anxieties, regrets, a permanent state of guilt and mourning were not exactly the qualities a groom would hope for in his bride.

‘What did the caver report?’

She flung out her arms, as though taking in the whole of the moors. ‘He said that it wasn’t possible to search every cave to every depth. But he gave me a map, dotting the places he and others had explored, since August 1916. I hoped there might be traces that Dad had camped out. But the chap seemed to think I was expecting the worst. He said that all the men round here know about father, and if ever a body is found …’

‘Come on, Tabitha, let’s get out of this wind.’ I felt a sudden need to be on lower ground.

‘He did mention there’d been a fire in one of the caves. That could have been lit by Dad or …’ She trailed off sadly without finishing her thought, pointing to what she regarded as a path, though I couldn’t see it. ‘This is the quickest way.’ She looked at me doubtfully. ‘If you don’t mind running.’

Once you begin to run down a fell, you cannot stop. I leaped over loose scree and tiny rocks, slid down a grassy slope, jumped over a great hole in the ground.

‘Keep going!’ Tabitha urged, running just ahead of me.

I didn’t dare take my eyes off the ground, but a question was forming in between the leaps and jumps. I called to her as the wind blew up and whipped my cheeks. ‘Last September, did something prompt you to ask the caver to search?’

‘Don’t think so.’

‘Was it in any way a special month?’

‘I got engaged.’

You got engaged to an ex-boy scout who could tell us both what he knows, but doesn’t choose to.

She came to a halt in front of me so that I almost ran into her. The path levelled out a little, so we could stop running.

We paused for a rest where a stream gurgled down the hill. Tabitha produced two apples. I peeled off my gloves and cupped my hands in the flowing water for a drink.

Tabitha frowned. ‘I know what you’re thinking. Dad was found by boy scouts. Hector was a boy scout.’ She bit into her apple and munched slowly.

A young rabbit peered fearlessly from among a patch of bracken. We watched as it first nibbled at a blade of grass, then bit into the bracken, as though on its first solo outing, testing what would be good fodder.

‘And have you asked Hector about it?’

She swallowed. ‘It got us into a bit of a row. Hector doesn’t like being reminded that he was a boy scout when I was in the VAD. Frankly, neither do I. He said Dad was found by a boy called Humphrey Longfellow, who emigrated to Australia with his family, and by a young lad whose name he can’t remember, and that the young lad fetched the scoutmaster.’

That fitted with what Becky had told me, although in Becky’s story two older scouts had found Joshua Braithwaite, and her brother was the younger lad who had been sent to tell the scoutmaster.

A look of desolation came over Tabitha’s face. ‘If Hector truly loved me, wouldn’t he help me? Wouldn’t
he want to know what happened?’

I wasn’t sure how to answer, except to say that it seemed to me he did love her, and perhaps wanted her to look forward and not back.

I ate my apple to the core. Tabitha left hers half-eaten, a treat for the baby rabbit, wherever it lurked.

From where we stood we had a good view of a snaking road, and beyond that hills and fields. She pointed to a building nestled into the fell.

‘That’s Milton House Hospital. You can see it from here but not from the road.’

Dr Gregory Grainger of Milton House had reached the top of my list of people to talk to.

‘What’s Dr Grainger like?’

‘He’s a very clever man, widower, about forty years old, quite good-looking.’

‘Really?’ I raised an eyebrow, hoping to lighten her mood. From her description he seemed a far better match than young Hector.

She laughed. ‘He’s a bit full of himself. If you take a shine to him, you’ll need to look sharp. Everything’s being packed up at the hospital. It’s closed now. He’ll soon be gone.’

It was mid-afternoon when Tabitha and I returned to her home, still early enough for me to change and set off to see Dr Grainger. She came to the gate with me, to set me on the right road for Milton House Hospital. It was a drive of a couple of miles, and then a choice of taking the car up a dirt track, or parking by the side of the road and walking.

Rather than risk the Jowett’s tyres, I left the vehicle and walked. From the fell where we walked earlier, Milton House had appeared a stone’s throw off the road. After ten minutes’ hike up a steep hill, without sight of the house, I began to suspect I had lost my bearings. Keep
climbing, or strike out to the left? Tabitha had not mentioned a cattle grid or barn. There must be farms nearby. Could one of the farms have provided a bolt hole for Joshua Braithwaite, I wondered. As far as I could see, fields were bounded by dry-stone walls. Meagre trees, ready to come into leaf under sufferance, dotted the landscape at a distance from each other, as if uncertain of their welcome.

As I was about to retrace my steps, the hospital came into view. Like other buildings in the area, the house was of stone. That its high surrounding wall was of neat Elizabethan bricks, weathered by wind and rain, surprised me. It seemed a contrary choice in a landscape dominated by dry-stone walls.

The big front gates were shut but not locked. I decided not to enter at the front but to circle the house for any obscured exits Braithwaite may have found. The path round to the left of the house took me by a clump of gorse bushes and a side gate, locked and overgrown. At the rear of the property stood a small gate in the centre of the back wall. It was secured by a bolt which I had no trouble in reaching and releasing.

The path led to an unsteady-looking porch. Next to that, French windows stood open, a pale curtain blowing gently from one of them. Framed there, unmistakeably, was Evelyn Braithwaite. She wore her riding garb. She would surely come in my direction. I stayed by the gate and watched. She and the man with her were unaware of me, eyes only for each other. She raised her face, as if for a kiss. He lowered his head. Their lips touched.

Had there been all the time in the world for my investigation, I might have disappeared back to my car and not confronted Evelyn. For a moment it occurred to me to do just that, but most likely she would see me on the path.

Quickly, I retraced my footsteps, so that when she
emerged from the back gate she would think I had just arrived.

‘Evelyn!’ I called.

We were a few yards apart. I could not make out the look on her face, but her body froze. She stood, hand on the gate, until I came near.

‘Kate, what are you doing here?’

‘I wanted to see the last place your husband stayed before his disappearance, and to talk to Dr Grainger.’

‘Have you … have you been here long?’

‘Just this moment arrived.’

She seemed relieved, and yet unsure what to say next.

‘Have you an appointment with him?’

‘One of the advantages of being an investigator is that you can occasionally pay a surprise visit, even to a gentleman.’

She forced a smile. ‘If Tabitha had thought of that she may have been tempted to follow your hobby herself. How is your investigation going, may I ask?’

‘Not very well.’

‘I won’t say I told you so.’ She flicked her riding whip. ‘Well, excuse me. I left my mare tethered by the stream.’

I admired her coolness in not attempting to explain her presence, or to say anything that Dr Grainger might contradict.

I approached the French windows just as Dr Grainger was closing them.

‘Pardon me arriving unannounced. Mrs Braithwaite did offer to introduce us. Kate Shackleton, friend of Miss Braithwaite.’

He took my hand, yet looked beyond me, as if to see whether Evelyn was still about. ‘How do you do, Mrs Shackleton. Grainger. Dr Gregory Grainger.’

He offered me a chair. His desk was placed so that he sat with his back to the window. Perhaps the view onto the garden and the moors beyond distracted him. His
patients, sitting in the chair he offered me, would have a wider perspective, onto the moors.

It doesn’t hurt to lie sometimes. I apologised for the intrusion and looked him in the eye. ‘I tried to telephone to you, but there was a problem on the line.’

He gave a small, amused smile that said he knew I was lying.

We were appraising each other. A lean man, alert and athletic-looking as though he burned off energy through every pore, he gave the impression of having a mind that was never still.

‘I’m sorry to say you’ve caught me at an inconvenient moment. But how can I help you?’

I saw no point in a photographing-the-scenery cover story, so came straight to the point.

‘Miss Braithwaite has asked me to look into her father’s disappearance. It’s her last-ditch attempt before she marries – still hoping to get news of him before the wedding.’

He raised his eyebrows and shook his head sympathetically. ‘Sad business. Poor girl.’

If I read the language of his body correctly, he seemed relieved. He relaxed back in his chair. Why? Perhaps he expected me to mention Evelyn’s departure, and, not knowing what she may have said to me, feared contradicting her. On the other hand, maybe he really was anxious to get on.

A chaise longue stood too close to the wall, its dark-red velvet cover leaving a mark on the lighter wallpaper. Did his talking cure involve his patients lying down and closing their eyes? Officers back from the horrors of the front must have lain there, dreading the spectres that would materialise. Just for a moment, the living dead seemed to shuffle across the room.

‘Since I’ve called at an inconvenient time, I’ll come straight to the point, Dr Grainger. Mr Braithwaite was
brought here by Constable Mitchell on Sunday morning, 20 August 1916. By the end of the following afternoon, he was gone. Do you have any ideas or thoughts about him, or about that time, that might give me a clue as to what happened to him?’